Will Dell enter the smartphone race?

By Nick Mansell on Tue 13 January 2009

It's getting crowded in the smartphone arena. The iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, T-Mobile G1, HTC Touch HD, not forgetting the (cough)  as yet unreleased Garmin nüvifone - and now the Palm Pre. But is there room for one more?

Analysts in the States have been keeping an eye on Dell as possibly the next (last?) big hitter to enter the market. According to a research note by the Kaufman Bros. analyst, Shaw Wu, a Dell smartphone is getting "closer to reality" after near-on two years of talks with potential component suppliers.

Two weeks is a long time in politics and two years is a lifetime in technology, especially in the smartphone business. If Palm has shown us anything with its Pre, it's that no one can now come into this game with a half hearted and-me product. If a new phone's to succeed it needs to be distinctive and it needs to be good - very good - to compete with the devices already out there.

So what are Dell's options? Another Windows Mobile device a la its now dropped Axim line of PDAs? Possibly, but that's unlikely to cut it unless Dell can take HTC's line and radically transform WM with its own skin. But Wu suggests Dell is more likely to go with its own operating system, as Palm did with its webOS on the Pre.

"For this reason, we believe Dell may need to consider an acquisition," he argues. Now, anyone got a OS maker they'd like to sell?

[Electronista]